JUNE 4, 2014 CHELSEA NOW

VOLUME 6, NUMBER 16 JUNE 05, 2014

THE WEST SIDE’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SERVING CHELSEA, HUDSON YARDS & HELL'S KITCHEN

Ninth Ave. Post Office Here, For Now BY SAM SPOKONY The post office on the ground floor of Chelsea’s Google building is apparently safe from the tech giant’s forthcoming construction plans — for now. But spokespeople for the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the building’s management can’t seem to agree on the information they’re releasing about the future of the post office. Some local residents were taken aback recently when they found a USPS notice posted at the ground floor entrance of the 76 Ninth Ave. post office, which stated that the office would “suspend operaContinued on page 3

Women Discover and Share Support Systems at ‘Let’s Talk’ BY EILEEN STUKANE The first of City Councilmember Corey Johnson’s series of themed evenings debuted last week at The New School Student Center on W. 13th St. “Let’s Talk” hopes to generate conversation between leaders in specific fields who usually do not have the opportunity to provide people with answers. The focus of May 29’s inaugural edition — “Women’s Issues, The Empowerment of Women” — brought Continued on page 4

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Simply Sudsational!

Photo by Timothy Schenck, courtesy Friends of The High Line

Perched atop its container, this washing machine drum is functional only in the sense that it brings some welcome visual absurdity to the High Line. On view through March 2015, Yngve Holen’s “Sensitive 4 Detergent” is part of “Archeo” — a group exhibition about technology and obsolescence fully aware that it takes place amongst a repurposed elevated railroad. For more info, visit thehighline.org.

Domestic Violence Comprises Half of Chelsea Felony Assaults BY WINNIE McCROY At the March 26, 2014 meeting of the 10th Precinct’s Community Council, representatives from the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence (OCDV) surprised some attendees when they noted that, year-to-date, upwards of one-third of Chelsea’s felony assaults were attributed to domestic violence. “This is a lower number of assaults as compared to busier precincts; it’s a nicer neighborhood,” said 10th Precinct Sergeant Erin McMorrow, when questioned about the March stats. “All around, crime is a lot less in Chelsea than in other neighborhoods.” Last week, McMorrow told this newspaper that there were 41 year-to-date assaults in the 10th Precinct as of May 30, 2014 — 20 of which can be attributed to domestic violence. Just to give readers an idea of how this compares to

rates of felony assaults in the past, CompStat provides the historical perspective statistics of 301 felony assaults for 1990, and 98 felony assaults for 2013. Those numbers reflect a -67.4 percent reduction in felony crimes — including domestic violence assaults — in Chelsea during that time period. Tracy Weber-Thomas, Asst. Commissioner for the OCDV, confirmed that citywide, 40 percent of all felony assaults were domestic violence-related. In the 10th Precinct, those stats reveal that 30 percent of felony assaults are domestic violence-related. Does that mean that domestic violence isn’t a big problem in Chelsea? No. As Weber-Thomas quipped, “even one felony assault that’s domestic-violence-related is one too many.”

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